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It’s been a while, so let me refresh your memories: Hisashi Iwakuma and Oakland were unable to come to terms on a contract, and the righty will remain in Japan next season. Iwakuma earns the somewhat dubious distinction of being the first posted NPB player not to sign with the team that had won his rights.

This is actually not a purely negative outcome for any of the three parties involved. Iwakuma’s inevitable move to the Majors is delayed by a year, but when he hits free agency he’ll be have all the leverage that comes with it. Oakland won’t have Iwakuma’s services, but recouped their $19.1 million posting fee, which was a large amount to wager on a 30 year-old pitcher with no MLB experience. The Rakuten Golden Eagles, Iwakuma’s NPB team, come out the worst since they’ve missed out on a revenue source that would have covered about 73% of their 2010 payroll, and can expect to lose Iwakuma uncompensated next year. But they only posted Iwakuma reluctantly, and retaining their ace gives them a much better ability to compete in a very balanced Pacific League.

The first thing that jumped out at me in this case is the particular inefficiency of the posting system. It’s a closed bidding process, which means that in theory, none of the bidding teams know the amounts of other bids, or if there are other bids. Speculatively, if the bidding process had been open, the A’s could have outbid their nearest competitor by a small amount and offered Iwakuma a more reasonable contract. Instead, the A’s submitted and outsize bid with the intent of using their leverage, while Iwakuma’s camp took the bid amount as an implication of the size of the contract he could command. I don’t buy any conspiracy theories on this one, I just think that it was a case of mis-matched expectations.

The other thing I noticed about this posting is that a confluence of things have to exist for a posting to be beneficial for everyone. For the posting using to be worth using for the player, pros of getting in MLB quickly must outweigh the cons of only being able to negotiate with one team. For it to be worth it (financially, at least) for the acquiring MLB team, the team must be able to sign the player at a salary low enough to counterbalance the cost of the posting fee. For it to be worth it for the NPB team posting the player, it must be clear that the player is going to eventually depart anyway, or that the player’s absence won’t affect the team competitively. Judged by these criteria, only a few postings have really worked out well for all parties involved: Ichiro, Ramon Ramirez and Akinoris Otsuka and Iwamura.

Patrick Newman is a veteran enthusiast of Japanese baseball who happens to write about it at npbtracker.com, and on Twitter @npbtracker.

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Matt K

They need to get rid of the posting system. Let the player sign with anyone, but when the player signs, the team gets the contract amount as the posting fee. essentially doubling the player’s salary. And guaranteed free agency after the contract is over.

Either that, or us team has to simply trade for the player for cash, and the rest of the player’s contract with the old team plays out, and again, free agency after that contract is over.

Of course, that means big market teams are going to get most of these players, but it’s not like that’s any different now.

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6 years 11 months ago

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vivalajeter

Problem with scenario 1: Player can sign a one-year deal, then cash in a year from now. Let’s say he’s worth $20MM/year, but he’ll only get $10MM through this process (with the other $10MM going to his old team). He can sign a 5 year, $50MM contract as one option. Or he can sign a 1 year, $10MM contract – and next off-season, sign for 4 years and $80MM. He risks injury (or futility), but can make an additional $40MM by signing a one-year deal.

Problem with scenario 2: If the player is underpaid, he shouldn’t be penalized in the US for that – he should be able to get what the market will pay.